RowTheBoat.com

Welcome to the home of PC-Rower. PC-Rower is a platform-independent piece of software that lets you race a pace boat/a previous workout/another rower(s) either as a boat shadow or another boat. The pace boats use the exact stroke paces not an average over 500m.

The software can work on:

Windows 98, Me, 2000 and XP

Linux (available in GTK2 and Motif)

Unix (Motif)

MAC OSX

Solaris 8 (Motif)

Windows CE

In theory any other Java supporting platform

Only those in bold have been tested and now work. If you have another listed operating system then please get in touch with platforms@rowtheboat.com and we'll see if we can get it running. The current version of the software was created for my dissertation at Durham and consequently has a rather basic GUI. A 200Mhz machine was tested and worked well, so old systems can be used. Downloads and screenshots can be accessed from the project sourceforge page.

Version 1

This is the original version that is now being used as a proof of concept, to show that the software can work on multiple platforms. Current development effort is focusing on getting this working and improving speed. Once this has been achieved further additions may be made, PM3 support may be added once Java USB becomes available (and I get hold of a PM3).

As far as I know there are no bugs. However the software will not detect a low battery in the PM2+ (note the PM2+ will display fine but cease to communicate with the PC to conserve power). Currently only the PM2+ is supported, although upto 128 can be daisy-chained and used at once (you'll need a big screen for this, although this will be resolved in version 2). When using multiple PM2+'s you will need to manually assign lane numbers as this wasn't automated in the software (again will be resolved in version 2). If you find any bugs please report to bugs@rowtheboat.com with the software version (Help->About), platform and type of build (Java or native).

USB support: A keyspan USA19HS is known to work, although I would expect all usb to serial devices to work. Please get in touch if you have difficulties.

Performance: In the options dialog the 'Retrieve full stroke data' when switched off will only retrieve the time and distance of each boat. This speeds up the software which is useful when there are lots of PM2+ units plugged in but means logging would not have any data for stroke split, power etc. If speed is important turn this option off and you will get upto 40fps (for one boat).

There are two options for downloading the software, as Java class files or as pre-compiled native package. The precompiled option is slightly faster than running over a JVM, although by very little now it has been optimised. If you're on an old machine the native version may be better.

Please visit the sourceforge site to download the software.(Change log here)

Version 2

It is planned to rewrite the software and I am looking for volunteers to help in this. Some notes on the existing project and plans for version 2 can be found here and my original dissertation can be found here